What you need to know about designing a new home
A lovely new home (designed by yours truly) being built in picturesque Pukehina.
Building a new home: where does it all start?
Whether you are in the early stages of planning a new house build or you’ve just bought a block of land, it’s best to think about the design early. While many people start their journey talking to a builder, I recommend doing a bit of homework and talking to an architectural designer as early as possible.
What to bring to the party
To make sure your design gets off to the right start, it’s important to have:
A list of expectations. This is important! Think about what’s important to you, like versatility, sustainability, privacy, capturing the sun, and so on. This is where you get to lay out the ‘identity’ of your home.
A list of needs. This is the basic stuff: how many bedrooms, the maximum floor area (or size of your land), your expectations for the interior fittings (high-end, standard or budget), solar power, sustainable materials and just about anything else you can’t (or don’t want to) compromise on.
A list of wants. This is your ‘nice to have’ list and is often budget-dependent. It’s good to rank this list in terms of importance (for example, a second bathroom at the top and walk-in wardrobes at the bottom).
The basics about your building site.
Your budget.
Now that last one is vitally important. It can be helpful to start with your absolute maximum, then reduce it by 20% to give yourself a flexible cushion, known as a ‘contingency’.
Of course, the actual figure depends on tenders from your prospective builders, so it’s important to remember that cushion!
What happens next
Now we’ve joined forces, and the design process starts! We will have a meeting or two along the way, and once you’re happy with the developed design, we look at a concept costing.
Finding out the actual likely cost of your build can take time. A concept costing is where we give the designs to a builder to produce a fairly accurate estimate.
If it’s a very large or very complicated build I recommend engaging a quantity surveyor to give you an accurate cost estimate.
Once the concept costing comes in, it’s time to make decisions. If everything is good to go and within budget, I start working on the consent applications.
If the costing comes back over budget (or, and this is rare, too far under!), we go back to the designs and look at what we can change to better fit what you can afford. If the plans are way out of the budget it’s important to start with altering design elements, because just changing materials is rarely going to make for significant savings.
Once you’re happy with it, the costing process happens again - but generally, that’s the last estimate stage, and it’s time to go to your builder (or start a tender process).
While that’s going on, the consent documents get lodged (with the final designs) and once that’s granted, your building can begin!
Ready? Let’s talk.
Contact me to start designing your dream home.